


i am who you think i am (just not what)

by polarisparker



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Character Death, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Murder, Other, Sad Ending, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27008488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polarisparker/pseuds/polarisparker
Summary: Red and White are tasked with terminating the crew aboard theSkeld;the whole world might just depend on it. Unfortunately, Red has to learn the hard way that murder isn't easy, especially when her targets become her friends and maybe, just maybe, something more."I needed to be with someone.”Get away from me, Red wants to say as they press their forehead against hers.Don’t care about me, please. Don’t make me care about you. Not when I have to kill you.“I needed to be with you,” Blue finishes, leaning in.
Relationships: Blue/Red (Among Us), Crewmate/Impostor (Among Us), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 89





	i am who you think i am (just not what)

**Author's Note:**

> i made a few changes for my personal canon. impostors aren't parasitic alien monsters (just regular murderers). the crew is on the _Skeld_ , carrying valuable MIRA intel to the planet Unity (named after the game's engine). there's a lot more moral/political conflict in my fic than in the real game, but i'm okay with that and i hope you are, too. my twitter is [@polarisparker](https://twitter.com/polarisparker)
> 
> tw // death, violence, knives, guns, mild homophobia

**-00:00:01:00**

The order arrives exactly an hour before launch.

Red should count herself lucky, she supposes, that it happens before they board the _Skeld_ and not after. At least this way, when she finds out that she and White are going to kill ten people, said people are still faceless suits, not a trace of humanity to be found behind their colored helmets and reflective visors. 

But that’s just it, isn’t it? They are _going_ to kill ten people. This is not “your mission, should you choose to accept it.” There is no Plan B. They kill these ten people before they reach the planet of Unity, or they fail. Failure is synonymous with catastrophe. If they fail, MIRA burns, and the entire universe burns with it. 

Still, Red finds it difficult to control the instant unease that floods through her, only heightened with each passing moment among her future crewmates. The astronauts in green and orange constantly orbit each other, something so human behind every casual touch that it creates a phantom ache in Red’s own heart. The astronaut with a brown helmet helps Red with a particularly heavy food storage unit, strong yet gentle. The astronaut in cyan sits on a ramp tossing jokes at the one in lime, unbothered by the lack of a positive response (or, really, any response at all). He can’t be older than twenty. ‘Endearing’ crosses Red’s mind, but she ignores it, tries her best to ignore everything except glimpses of White in her periphery. 

She wonders if White dreads the killing as much as she does. She wonders if any of the Rebel crewmates know their actions against MIRA haven’t gone unnoticed. She wonders if they have families or lovers, back at home or even on Unity. 

She wonders, distantly, if it will be tedious to kill, or if it will take no time at all. 

**+00:00:03:23**

It’s Green who decides that they should use their suits as identifiers rather than their given names. “No offense, but there’s no way to know if any of us are members of the Rebellion. It’s better to play it safe, to avoid putting MIRA at risk.” 

Red has to hold back a mocking sort of laugh. Green is bold, very bold, to pretend she and the rest of her crew aren’t Rebels themselves. Does she suspect that her ship has been flagged, that two assassins—impostors—have been sent to eliminate her? Is she trying to cover her tracks? 

“That’s very clever of you, ma’am,” Black says. For whatever reason, it sounds like there’s a “but” on its way, but Cyan is already speaking over him.

In the three and a half hours they’ve spent on board, Cyan has already proven to be exactly what Red hoped he wouldn’t be: endearing. Even with the visor over his face, she can tell he always wears a smile. “Can we take off our helmets, though?” he’s asking Green and Orange, who have, intentionally or not, become the leading force aboard their vessel. 

Orange is the first to remove hers, and under it, her face is so thoroughly etched with scars and scratches that it almost makes Red wince. “I don’t see why not.” 

The rest of the helmets are off within seconds. Red unwillingly finds herself scanning everyone’s faces, taking in little details that she begs herself to forget: the deep brown of Yellow’s skin, the roundness of Lime’s eyes, the crinkles around Green’s mouth, the glare fixed on Purple’s face. 

Her gaze lands on White, fixes on the furrowing of her eyebrows and the hardness of her jaw. Imperceptibly, White shakes her head. Red looks away. 

She can’t help but catch Blue, a few feet to her right, looking curiously between them. 

**+00:00:08:34**

No one is entirely sure what time is considered night, so Lime calls a meeting at eight and a half hours after launch to show the crew a clock she made using spare parts from electrical. “It’s—well—I know we should have been doing our tasks, but they didn’t keep a timepiece in our inventory, so I just figured—”

Green is smiling. “Good thinking, Lime,” she says, and those three words are enough for a switch to flip and for Lime to relax into herself. 

“Yeah,” Cyan pitches in, always needing to have something to say no matter how ridiculous he sounds. “That’s super smart. Genius, one could say.” When Lime turns her hesitant smile towards him, he gets this dazed, flushed look on his face. 

Being the tallest apart from Purple, who rolls his eyes whenever anyone asks him for any favor, Brown is the one tasked with mounting the timepiece. It fits almost perfectly into the nook above the doors sealing their quarters off from the rest of the _Skeld_. Four two-digit numbers span the screen: weeks, days, hours, and minutes since launch. Before the crew’s eyes, the thirty-fourth minute fades into the thirty-fifth. 

“Every time the hour count hits twenty-one, we’ll eat, then around twenty-two hours we’ll hit the hay,” Green starts, flipping a rectangular patch on her arm to reveal a holographic tablet. She notes it down before looking back up at the group. “Any issues with that?” 

“Yeah, I’ve got an issue with that.” It’s the first time Purple has spoken; his voice is deep, flat, monotonous. “Who the fuck decided to let the tiny lesbian play Captain, huh?” 

Next to Red, Blue sighs under their breath. Orange’s fingers are curled into fists from where she bristles next to her wife, but Green herself looks Purple calmly in the eye. “Alright, Purple. Ever killed a man?” 

He shifts in his chair. “No, but how does that—” 

“Ever lost your friends to Rebel fire?” 

Here the moody glare on his face vanishes, genuine discomfort taking its place. “No.” 

Green smiles then, a dangerous, practiced smile. She looks weathered and cold and, for the first time, Red can truly picture her as that Rebel threat she was sent to eliminate. “Then you don’t know shit about what it means to be Captain. Sit down.”

Purple may already be seated, but any bit of dignity he had is now lost to the embarrassment flushing his pale skin pink. He doesn’t mouth off again, but the look on his face is a close thing. The rest of the crew takes the silence in stride and listens to Green quietly, though a bit hesitantly, as she continues through their schedule. 

Wake up at seven hours. 

Eat at eight hours. 

Report on progress at twelve hours.

Eat at thirteen hours. 

Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. It seems easy enough, especially when Red considers how much time the crew will spend completing tasks alone. The _Skeld_ is an estimated five weeks from Unity. That’s enough time to kill ten people, Red thinks, already putting together escape routes in her head. 

“What about leisure?” Pink asks, their voice strikingly young compared to their physique. “I’ve been hoping to chart the stars on the way to Unity.” They hold up a small notebook; it’s bound with leather dyed a deep blue, almost exactly the shade of their hair. 

“As long as you finish up your daily checklist sometime between nine and twenty-one hours, you’re good,” Orange offers. “There’s this wide window down near storage where you have a pretty good view of space.”

“And the trash chute,” Yellow adds, grinning. “Can’t forget the trash chute.”

Brown laughs, perhaps a little louder than necessary, then stands up and stretches. “In that case, Orange, I hope you don’t mind me taking a little nap. We’ve been up all night, and a guy needs his beauty sleep.” 

As if on cue, the rest of the crew disperses, pulling on their oxygen packs and snapping tubes into place. Lime has caught Brown on the way to his quarters and seems to be asking him a question. Apart from them and Green, who stands at the table divvying up tasks on her tablet, all the crewmates enter the _Skeld_ and scatter. 

**+00:00:09:19**

Red corners White in electrical less than an hour later. She leans against the wall and watches quietly as White fails again and again at calibrating the distributor. 

“Here, let me,” Red cuts in loudly after the twelfth failed attempt, reaching in and using their proximity as a cover to whisper, “do we have any weapons?” 

_Beep. Shaft one calibrated_. 

“Got a knife and a gun,” White mutters, voice blunt and neutral. “What do you want.”

 _Beep. Shaft two calibrated_. 

A knife or a gun? Red tests each one in her mind. A knife will give her the upper hand on stealth, and Red knows she isn’t subtle enough to get by without it. “Gun,” she answers anyway. It’s selfish of her. But she doesn’t want to be able to see her crewmates’ eyes when she kills them. 

_Beep. Shaft three calibrated_. 

Red is handed the gun right as she steps away from the distributor. She tucks it deep into a utility pocket at her waist, its shape hidden by her oxygen tube and the heaviness of the suit’s red nylon. 

“Good luck, _partner_ ,” White calls from the other side of the shelving unit. And then she’s gone. 

**+00:00:20:29**

By twenty and a half hours, everyone has finished their first day’s worth of tasks. Ten of them sit in a raggedy circle in the middle of the cafeteria, half of them slumped over a round table and the other half sprawled across the floor. Green and Orange are the only ones still working, constantly on the move between storage and the cafeteria while they pull together a meal for the crew. 

Lime has her suit zipped down to her waist and thin rubber bands climbing up her arms. Brown is sitting at her feet, letting her gently part his hair into sections and start to braid. He seems to be telling a story, based on his animated face and Lime’s quiet laughter; he waves Red over when he catches her watching them. 

“Red, quick.” He’s beaming, but Lime is shoving at his shoulder, her face red. “Gimme the percent chance that Cyan is totally into Lime—don’t look at him, don’t look!” 

“Oops,” Red mutters, but she thinks Brown may be magic, because now she’s smiling, too. “Too late.” At least Cyan doesn’t notice her, but only because his gaze seems to be artificially fixed on some point far away from them, as if he’s intentionally avoiding looking in their direction. 

“Well?” 

“Ninety,” she admits. Lime looks betrayed, but it’s true—in just twenty hours, Cyan has spent a disproportionate amount of time acting like an infatuated idiot. 

Yellow slides onto the floor next to Red, propping an arm on her shoulder and nudging Brown’s leg with his own. “So we bettin’ on bluegreen, then?” 

“Yellow,” Lime says, distressed. “Yellow, I swear to God—”

“Absolutely phenomenal idea, my man,” Brown cuts in, reaching out to bump fists with Yellow.

“Thank you, my dude.”

“No problem, my bro.”

“You're the best, homie.”

“That’s all you— _goddammit_ , Lime!” Brown glares up at her innocent smile and suspiciously tight grip on his hair. 

Fuck it. “Twenty bucks Cyan confesses by the end of week one,” Red offers, unable to stop her own grin from widening. 

Yellow ruffles her hair, and the casual friendly action makes a surprisingly strong, warm feeling flood through her. “Hell yeah, Red, get into it. Ten bucks Lime says she’s not interested. I bet she likes to make her boys suffer a little.”

“Oh, you piece of shit.” Lime tries to kick him, but her legs are too short to reach. She looks positively murderous, and now they’re all laughing, loud enough for Blue to wander over and sit down on Red’s other side. 

“Fifteen bucks,” Brown forces out through his laughter, “we catch them in medbay by the end of week two!” 

“That’s it!” In one surprisingly hard shove, Brown ends up thrown forward onto Yellow’s legs, his half-braided hair strewn in all directions, Lime’s red face a strange mix of smug and exasperated. 

Blue leans in to whisper in Red’s ear. “Okay, now consider: Brown and Yellow.” 

She takes a second, both to consider it and to avoid reacting to Blue’s proximity. Yellow has pulled out a little audio device with earbuds trailing from it. He and Brown have their heads tilted together, one earbud in each of their ears, while Lime has resumed working on Brown’s hair, outburst forgotten. “Now, hold on,” Red says out loud. “You’re a fucking genius, Blue.” 

They back away and stand up, brown eyes shining with laughter. “I know we’re just idiots stuck on a ship together for five weeks, but the possibilities are endless.” Red must look confused, but Blue just grins and starts towards Green and Orange, who seem to be just about done. “I’m just saying, Red. Don’t be a stranger.” 

**+00:01:20:37**

Almost two days after launch, Red and Orange are alone in the cafeteria between tasks. “God,” Orange says through the straw in her mouth, “that oxygen filter can’t be just a day old. That was disgusting.”

All Red responds with is a nod. She knows Brown is fast asleep in his quarters, with the rest of the crew concentrated near the south side of the _Skeld_. Over the past day, she and White have hotwired their suits with a connection to every door on the ship and hoarded the only screwdrivers that fit the vents. If there is any good timing for a first kill, it is now. 

“Where’s your next task?” Orange asks. 

Red pretends to look down at her task log, but she’s really checking the admin panel. Security and medbay are both empty. “Medbay,” she lies. “There’s some cell samples that need testing. Have you done your daily scan yet?” 

“No, not yet. I like to save that for after the gross ones.”

“Let’s go, then,” Red says, trying to ignore her erratic heartbeat, trying not to seem too eager to get her alone, trying to make sure they’ll reach the medbay before someone else does. “It’s almost twenty-one hours anyway.”

Orange shrugs and stands up; both of them snap their helmets and oxygen tubes into place, then start on the short walk towards medbay. The lights seem too bright. Their footsteps seem too loud, too slow. Have they become giants? Is the _Skeld_ shrinking, or growing? Finally, Orange steps onto the scanner and raises her arms forty-five degrees from her sides. In this lighting, her scars stand out even more, a sharp white against the brown of her skin. She looks older. More human. 

With the press of two buttons, the medbay doors close. Orange looks puzzled but clueless, unable to move for fear of the scanner damaging her body. Red uses shaky hands to undo the zipper at her waist. When she pulls out the gun and points it at Orange’s heart, her aim aided by the green light of the scanner, Orange’s eyes widen.

She shoots.

**+00:01:21:15**

“Has anyone seen Orange?” Green asks after handing Cyan the last tray of food. There’s a note of panic in her voice, so out of place that it sends the cafeteria into quiet. 

“Last time I saw her was right in here about an hour ago.” It feels risky for Red to be this honest, but at least this way, no one will draw attention to the fact that she wasn’t on the southern end with everyone else. “She said she just had a couple of tasks to go before she left, but she didn’t mention where she was going.” 

For a moment, Green wavers where she’s standing. She looks… scared, almost. Could she suspect that MIRA had her and her wife on its Rebel list? Could she suspect that the _Skeld_ has been tagged? “Someone come with me to look for her,” she pleads. “I haven’t gotten a single message. It’s probably nothing, but I just need to make sure she’s okay.” 

Yellow stands up from between Lime and Brown, lightly pushing Cyan into his freshly vacated seat. “I’ve got you, Green. Where do you want to start?” 

The nine remaining crewmates start whispering to one another, the whispers gradually growing into chaos once they leave. 

“Did you see Orange in electrical?”

“No, I figured she was in reactor or something. You see her in storage, Lime?” Black’s question seems to be directed towards Pink; Lime frowns in confusion from behind him.

“Um. I’m not Lime?” Pink says. Black blinks at them. “Well. All I was really paying attention to was the stars. So. No, I guess? Cyan, you were in storage, did you see her?”

Cyan tries to speak through a mouthful of food, but it comes out jumbled. He holds up his hand for a moment, chewing, then swallows exaggeratedly. “Nope.”

No one at the table seems to have seen Orange at any point within the last few hours, except for Red, who already explained herself before. They all laugh at Brown’s “look, she could’ve been dying right outside my door and I wouldn’t have noticed,” but it’s a little tense. Yellow and Green are still conspicuously absent. 

That is, until they aren’t; the awkward, stilted chatter falls to dead silence when Yellow walks through the door. Orange’s body hangs limp from his arms. 

“Fuck,” Red mutters, shooting out of her seat; it seems to be the right reaction, because everyone else around her is doing the same, either frozen with shock or rapidly speaking, trying to make sense of the dead body in front of them. 

Brown is the first to move forward, and he lifts Yellow’s helmet off his face, gently. Yellow is crying, but Green has her face buried in Black’s arms, so he’s the one everyone looks to for something—anything—in the realm of explanation. 

“We,” he croaks. Swallows. Tries again. “We found her in medbay. Her body was suspended mid-scan. Her heart, it was… it was a gunshot.”

The implications of that last word don’t go unnoticed. Pink goes as far as to gasp. A gunshot. A gun. Not an accident. 

“Rebels,” Green snarls, switching from quiet to furious so instantaneously that it’s almost scary. “The fucking Rebels. The _Skeld_ is a valued MIRA ship, so of course the Rebellion planted fucking _impostors_ among us.” Red is only confused for a split second; it makes sense that Green and her crew would lie about their allegiance as a show of innocence, and regardless, Green’s rage makes a far greater impact than her words.

She throws herself forward, scanning all of their faces, angry, hungry for revenge. But every face is the perfect picture of shock. Even White and Purple, who are usually blank or apathetic, look unsettled; White is a surprisingly good actress. Red knows she must be just as good, because when White’s gaze slides over her, there isn’t a single angry microexpression to be found. 

Orange was a Rebel, Red tells herself later. A Rebel, a risk to MIRA, a bad guy. A _Rebel_. It doesn’t do anything to ease her guilt. 

**+00:04:01:52**

Red can’t sleep. It was often hard for her in the last place she lived, due to some mix of insomnia and the inability to turn off her brain (they may be the same thing; she isn’t sure). But here in the _Skeld_ , between the soft beeping in the walls, the uneasiness caused by two deathless days, and the lump of her gun hidden inside her mattress, it’s almost worse. 

She stands up and uses her identification card to open the door from her quarters. The cafeteria light is on, so she isn’t alone. A few seconds of walking reveals that Blue and Cyan are sitting under the timepiece, quiet except for the shuffling and strategic placing of cards on their table. 

“Hey.” The two of them jump when Red announces her presence, but then their shoulders relax and they almost simultaneously shift sideways to make room for her at the table. “Deal me in?” she asks once she’s settled. 

“What are you doing up?” Cyan asks. He slides her four stacks of four cards each, then lays four face-up in the middle. She recognizes this game as the variation of Atlantis she used to play in school. 

Although she trusts herself not to reveal anything suspicious, she’s too tired to come up with a convincing excuse, so she redirects the question. “I could ask you the same thing. I wouldn’t expect the youngest on the ship to have trouble sleeping.” 

“Lime’s barely older than me,” he grumbles, but he must catch the knowing smile Red shares with Blue at the mention of his less than subtle crush, because he rushes to add, “I’m just not used to being away from my family for so long. I know it’s only been a couple of days, but you know how it is.” 

Red doesn’t know how it is. Evidently Blue doesn’t, either, because their brow furrows and they frown a bit. “It’s okay,” they say anyways. “We get it.” 

The three of them fall silent for a long while, except for murmured curses to go with their victories or losses. Whether consciously or not, Red finds herself watching Blue from the corner of the eye. Usually when she hasn’t slept for a while, Red sees her surroundings through a feathery, hazy lens of sleepiness. But Blue is so solid, so real, that Red feels drawn to them. 

A few more rounds and Cyan is yawning and packing up the cards, muttering something about lemonade or maybe parmesan as he stumbles into his room. 

“You tired?” Red asks once he’s gone. For some reason she doesn’t care to unpack yet, she hopes the answer is no. Time is suspended here, in the sleepless moments between twenty-two and seven hours, but five weeks of this still doesn’t feel like enough. 

_Don’t be a stranger_ , Blue had said to her two days ago. “Not really. The ship is too loud,” they say now. “What’s up?” Without the cards there as a distraction, every word holds ten times more weight. 

Red can’t help but think of Orange’s dead body, of the fact that the person sitting in front of her is yet another Rebel threat, of the fact that she or White will have to kill them eventually. Not just kill them; betray them, perhaps bring their worst fears to life. “What are you most afraid of?” she asks. In hindsight, the question is abrupt, but it feels important. 

If Blue thinks the question is odd, they don’t say anything about it. “I don’t know,” they say. Then, “that’s a lie. I do know. I’m afraid of being afraid. I’m afraid of not being able to do the right thing, of my anxiety holding me back.” They pause, and although they don’t say it, Red knows they’re waiting for her own response. 

“I used to be scared of being forgotten. Being unknown. Once that happened, and I lived through it, it went away.” Red tries to think of her greatest fear, her most pressing worry, something more personal than failing a mission and causing the world to crumble into ash. She comes up short. “I don’t know about now. Maybe I’m afraid of—maybe I’m afraid of love?”

They’ve never truly spoken before, so Red doesn’t expect Blue to understand, but they look like they do, and that might be enough. “Maybe you’re just scared of caring,” they say. 

Maybe, maybe. 

**+00:06:10:59**

It’s Purple who calls the next emergency meeting, having brought the charred remains of a second body to the cafeteria. If the crew hadn’t been looking over their shoulders for the past five days, paranoid about the Rebel threat that left Green so painfully alone it hurt to look at her, they might have considered it an accident. 

“There was an empty fuel canister next to their hand,” Purple says coolly. “Either they set themselves on fire, or someone else did them a favor.” Then, as an afterthought: “Lower engine.”

His demeanor makes Red want to punch him or worse, and the rest of the crew seems no different. Green slams her hand on the counter. “That was one of our crewmates, dammit, and they’re dead. We have an impostor on this ship, maybe more than one. You take this fucking seriously, Purple, or I swear to God.” Losing Orange has made her reckless. Losing Orange has made her even more human. 

A part of Red wonders how someone so deeply attached could work for an organization as ridiculously convoluted as the Rebellion. But then she thinks maybe Green and Orange didn’t care which side they were on, as long as it was the same one. 

“I’m just stating the facts, _Captain_ ,” Purple says. “No idea who it was. Didn’t bother looking for an ID since the body smells so bad. You fuckers can figure it out, and count me out of dinner. I’m going the fuck to sleep.” It’s the most he has ever spoken at once. 

Red is busy watching Purple’s retreating back, so she doesn’t hear Cyan’s shaky exhale until he reaches out and grabs her arm, hard. She turns back to look at him. His green eyes are wet. “Where’s Lime?” he asks, even though the answer is undoubtedly clear. Nobody responds. “Guys—” his voice breaks. “Please, where’s Lime?” 

Brown and Yellow slip away and set off toward storage, heads low, most likely to retrieve another body bag. White is the one to grip the blackened zipper on the leg of the suit and pull hard enough for everything to tumble out of its pocket. A handful of wire connectors. A small charm fashioned out of fried circuit boards, shaped like an Earth horse, or maybe a unicorn. And then, an identification card. 

It’s Lime. 

There’s a broken sound from next to her, but Red wills herself not to look. The more guilt she allows herself to feel, the less she’ll be able to do it the next time, and the next, and the next. 

_Good job, White_ , she forces herself to think, ignoring the sounds of Black gently consoling Cyan behind her. _Two down, eight to go_. 

**+01:00:04:31**

Red has no doubt in her mind that Cyan, too, is wide awake in his room that night. But she is a coward, so she doesn’t knock on his door, knowing any comfort she tries to offer will be futile. Besides, there is Blue, sitting alone at their table and absently shuffling a deck of cards. 

“Hey.” Blue is the first to speak, their voice rough with sleep. “Just woke up. Kind of figured you’d be joining me soon enough.” They deal out the cards, six stacks of four cards for each of them. It’s as good as _you don’t need to say anything_. It’s as good as _you being here is enough_. 

Two games later, there’s this itch under Red’s skin, something that stretching her legs out under the table (and accidentally bumping feet with Blue) hasn’t been able to fix. “Do you think we’re allowed to leave the cafeteria at night?” she asks, breaking the silence.

Blue looks up quickly, startled, the moment broken. “I don’t see why not. But why?”

How does Red explain it? She can’t just say _sitting still makes me think too much_ or, only slightly less risky, _I want to see what your hair looks like when we aren’t under these bright white lights_. “Maybe we could go check out the stars Pink won’t shut up about. They’ve been bailing on their tasks just to sketch the little shits, so they have to be good, right?” 

There’s this look on Blue’s face, a mix of puzzled and puzzling that throws Red’s head into a loop. “Sure,” they say slowly. “Sure, yes. Need help with your oxygen?”

 _No, not really_ , Red thinks, but—fuck it. She wants that, and with only four weeks left on the clock, want and need are slowly melting together. “Yeah, thanks.”

They stand up, grab the oxygen packs and helmets off the rack next to the doors, and turn to face each other. Blue reaches up first, lifting the pack over Red’s head and fastening it at her shoulders. If Red was any fairer, she might have visibly blushed; the idea of being flustered over someone like this is so foreign to her that it only makes her face feel warmer. 

“Um, do you,” she starts to offer, but Blue shakes their head and hands her the red helmet, a smile playing at the corners of their mouth. 

Somehow the loudness of the ship becomes more comforting than overwhelming once they’re outside, wide awake in the dark. The large window at the back of storage provides the faintest of light sources, but Red’s eyes are still adjusting, and Blue’s hand finds hers in the dark. “I think we may have company,” they say, not sounding remotely bothered. 

They’re right; if Red thought about it before, she may have predicted seeing Pink here, but the sight of Black passed out across Pink’s legs is a surprise. 

Blue doesn’t hesitate to sit down opposite the two crewmates, elbow propped against the window and back against a pile of boxes. Red scoots in so their sides are pressed together, partially because it’s chillier outside of the cafeteria, and partially because some strange thing about Blue makes Red feel safer, like Blue is a candle or a lightbulb or the whole fucking sun. 

“Hello,” Pink says without looking up from their notebook. “Black is asleep.” 

“I see,” Blue replies, then, “The stars are very pretty tonight.”

“Yes.” 

(As for what Blue’s hair looks like when they aren’t under bright white lights: when they pop open their visor, the stars make the curls glow an even softer brown, almost golden on the ends, like if Red touched them they’d be weightless.) 

**+01:02:09:47**

When Red walks into navigation a couple of days later, Black is slumped over the wiring box alone. She knows they’re the only people on the right side of the ship, but there’s still four weeks left until the _Skeld_ reaches Unity. Just this once, she decides it’s okay to hold back. 

Besides, Black seems to be in enough distress as is. “Fuck!” he snaps when sparks fly from an incorrect connection. He spots Red watching and gestures her over, exasperated. “Can you do these fucking wires? I’ve been here for forty minutes, and they won’t—fucking—connect!”

It’s the most Red has seen Black lose control before, but then again, it kind of makes sense. If there’s one thing capable of getting Black worked up, it’s proved to be any delay in the completion of tasks. “Yeah,” she says, suppressing a smile and reaching over to help him, “no problem.” He’s been trying hopelessly to connect a pink wire to a blue one, but at this point the wire connector is covered in little char marks and his fingertips are speckled with shallow red burns. Red connects pink to pink and blue to blue, and with that, it’s done. 

“You can close the door if you want,” she offers. 

Black slams it shut. “I swear,” he mutters, “one more failed attempt and I would’ve ejected myself from the airlock. I don’t give a shit.” 

Red isn’t quite sure how to respond, so after a pause she steps over to the data panel, plugs in the drive, and hits ‘download’. 

“Thanks,” she hears halfway through the download. “I will no longer be ejecting myself.”

“Glad I could help,” Red replies, not even bothering to hide the amusement in her voice. 

The download finishes, and the day wears on.

**+01:05:22:10**

White and Red have been orbiting each other for days, and although White has been difficult to read from the start, neither of them are very subtle with their uncertainty. Neither impostor knows how to approach killing the next Rebel. It feels like everyone is always on high alert, always suspicious of whoever was responsible for the first two deaths. 

Their first moment alone is on a night where Red hasn’t even bothered going to bed, and is instead sitting in the cafeteria staring at Lime’s timepiece. She turns around quickly when she hears a door open, but instead of Cyan or Blue on their way to join her, it’s White. Only White isn’t leaving her own room; she’s leaving Purple’s, trying to sneak back into her own and freezing when she catches Red’s eye. 

Her hair is a mess, and there’s deep red-purple marks on her legs where her shorts ride up. It’s strange to see White in regular clothes, and even more strange to see her in the state that she’s in right now. 

“What the fuck,” Red states. It feels like an understatement, and White must feel it, too, because she sighs and joins Red at the table. 

“It doesn’t mean anything.” Of all the things White has told her, this is the hardest to believe. Red hasn’t heard White say anything with so much sentiment behind it, perhaps ever. 

“Don’t lie to me. I don’t appreciate liars.”

“You’re just as much of a liar as I am. You appreciate all these crewmates plenty, even though everyone on this ship is lying every single day, pretending they don’t work for the Rebellion.”

“But none of that has gotten in the way of anything.”

“As if,” White scoffs. “You can’t even stomach a dead body. I saw the way you looked at Lime and her stupid grovelling boyfriend. You’re soft for the entire fucking crew, _especially_ your little homosexual crush, and it’s going to fuck you over when it comes down to it. Don’t pretend you haven’t been puppy-dogging after Blue, because it makes me sick.”

Red fumes quietly. White’s right about the Rebellion, but she’s wrong about everything else. She has to be. “At least I haven’t acted on it like you have. You know physical attachment is a whole different thing. It’s a lot harder to hide.”

“You’re such a bitch, Red, you know that?” White sighs again, deeper. “There’s no handbook from MIRA. We’re allowed to do whatever we want as long as everyone’s dead by the end of it.”

And, yeah, Red knows that, but there’s something upsetting about it being _Purple_ , of all people. It isn’t jealousy. Maybe it’s just hatred. “Purple is the most openly suspicious person in the crew,” she says instead, because White will take a threat to their operation more seriously than Purple’s homophobia or general dickheadedness. “If people know you’re associating with him, you’ll be at the top of their lists, too.” White still looks hesitant, so Red lies, “I overheard Green and Black talking about keeping an eye on him. Just… trust me on this one.” 

“Fucking _fine_ ,” White forces out through gritted teeth. “Is that all?”

Now that White’s asked… Red has never denied being selfish, nor has she denied being a bitch, and she lets both of those traits shine through for her next request. Not request—demand. “Nah, that’s not all.” She smiles. “I want Purple dead by tomorrow.” 

The next second, White has slapped her, hard, and the right side of her face is stinging with pain. “You _bitch_. I told you I would stop sleeping with him. Isn’t that enough? If they’re suspicious of him, shouldn’t we leave him alive for as long as possible?” 

It’s a fair point, but Red ignores it in favor of the ugly, bitter part of her that wants White to feel pain. This isn’t about Purple anymore; this is about White taking the killing in stride, about her making Red feel inferior just for her humanity. Red wants to take this one thing that seems to make White human away from her. 

“I have video footage of you and Lime,” she lies, again. She may be bad at stealth, but she can be convincing when she wants to be. “I want Purple dead by tomorrow, or you’re ejected.” 

White disappears into her room, furious. For once, Red can’t find a single trace of guilt inside her.

**+01:06:20:08**

Until the emergency meeting less than an hour before their last meal of the day, Red can say she’s never seen the fallout of a White who is truly, uncontrollably angry. That changes, though, when Brown crashes through the doorway into the cafeteria, out of breath. 

“There’s,” he gasps, and then Yellow is there, holding him steady with one arm looped around his back. “Pink, in the trash chute. They’re—it’s horrible—I don’t think we’ll be able to get them into a body bag.” By some silent agreement, everyone leaves Brown and Yellow in the cafeteria and hurries to storage. 

Pink’s notebook lies discarded on the floor. Black picks it up and tucks it into a pocket on his arm without speaking a word. Cyan clutches Lime’s unicorn-shaped charm tightly in his hand, closing his other hand over Black’s shoulder. It’s Green who throws the trash chute open, stepping back immediately at the sight that greets her. 

The body is in pieces. If Red didn’t know better, she would think it was done with a cleaver, not just a slightly-larger-than-usual knife; the insides of the chute are dripping with blood, and Red can see gleaming bone between folds of pink nylon. She feels suddenly, terribly sick, and steps backwards hastily. Her shortness of breath has her wishing she wasn’t wearing this stupid helmet, but she’s also grateful that it obstructs her guilt- and horror-stricken face from everyone around her. 

“No,” Blue breathes. “God, that’s… no.” 

Even Purple is horribly still and silent, a sharp change from his usual remarks about the dead. Green closes the hatch and, with an air of finality, pulls down the lever. Everyone averts their eyes, but it’s hard to miss the lump of pink and white and dark, dark red floating aimlessly away from the chute, like just another chunk of rocky debris. 

This death in particular was fucking brutal, and Red knows exactly why. When she closes her eyes, she can imagine the poison in White’s eyes from the previous night seeping into every cutting slash of her blade. But Red also knows that White will do what she told her to do, and that Purple’s body will be joining Pink’s in space soon enough. 

Everyone is painfully quiet on the walk back, the once-familiar noises of the _Skeld_ fading into a scraping hum at the back of Red’s ears. Finally the doors to the cafeteria close and the crewmates rip their helmets off urgently, all nine of them assembling in a scraggly semi-circle around the airlock. 

“This ends now,” Green says, visibly shaking with anger. She sounds murderous. “I won’t have any more Rebels _mutilating_ my crew. My friends. This isn’t just political anymore. We have to eject the impostor.”

Black shifts on his feet, as if hesitant to speak, but when he finally does, his voice rings clear. “Look, ma’am,” he says bluntly. “I think it’s Purple, and I think we all know why.”

Green’s jaw tightens. “We can’t be hasty, but I’ve been wary of Purple for a while. Does he have an alibi?”

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Purple says. Somehow he looks scared, and maybe regretful, as though even he is starting to realize that antagonizing the crew was a mistake. “Look, I was with White in the reactor for almost the whole day. You can fucking ask her.”

Eight sets of eyes flick to White, but only Red makes contact. She hopes the slight upward tilt of her chin is enough to tell White what she needs to do. 

“I was in reactor, yes,” White says, turning to face Purple for the last time. “But I was alone. I don’t appreciate liars.” Red recognizes the quote as a bitter stab at what she said last night, but she doesn’t care, because Purple is a goner, a fucking goner. 

His eyes widen. “White, what are you saying?” The semicircle closes around him. Green’s the one to shove him into the airlock, which closes with a hiss. Purple pounds at the glass with his fist, but of course it doesn’t open up; from the inside, they can barely hear the thuds, much less his desperate shouts. 

“You heard what White said,” Green tells him, hard as steel. “We don’t appreciate liars.” 

The wall behind him drops. He isn’t wearing a helmet, so his throat seizes up immediately, his face reddening while the crew watches on grimly. His limbs flail as if he’s trying to swim back towards the ship, but there isn’t any air for his arms to push off of. They watch with bated breath until his eyes bulge and his movements go still; then the airlock closes and Green sinks to the floor. 

“Someone,” she breathes, “please go report the Rebel infiltration to MIRA.” 

Red and White volunteer simultaneously, both knowing they need to be alone to discuss their plan of action. Four deaths in two weeks is better than Red expected, but now that only eight people remain, suspicions will be running higher than ever. 

When the two of them enter comms, White closes the door and whirls around to face Red. “Are you fucking happy now, Red?” she demands, pointing a finger in Red’s face. 

Red is smart enough to recognize that anger for what it really is: sadness. Mourning. Over _Purple_. She laughs, disbelieving. “You actually cared about that son of a bitch. You cared about him.” 

“Shut up,” White snarls, stomping over to the communications panel and slamming buttons with a vengeance until a line is opened. “The _Skeld_ to MIRA, the _Skeld_ to MIRA. Reporting Rebel activity. Four dead, threat eliminated.” Without bothering to wait for a response, she slams down the receiver. “What now?”

“Why not just alert MIRA that this entire crew is under the Rebellion?” Red asks. It feels like the clear solution to this mess; what’s the point of all the mindless killing when they can end it right here, right now? 

White doesn’t seem to think so. “I knew you were fucking stupid, but this is a new level.” The words are supposed to cut, but it’s White, so they barely leave a dent. “We have no idea who in MIRA is working with the Rebels. We have no idea who to trust, except that apparently we’re supposed to trust each other. If the MIRA on the other side of comms isn’t the MIRA that gave us these instructions, they’re a threat.”

“Fine. Okay. So what do we do now?”

“Fuck if I know.” White paces a little, then stops, then paces again. “We have to stay on the down low. Go a week or so without killing, get them off our trail. Will that be a problem?”

Of course White’s asking if avoiding killing for a while will be a problem for _Red_. “It’s you who needs to answer that question. You went completely unhinged on Pink.” 

“Not my fault you decided to be an insufferable asshole. I was having a bad day.”

“Normal people’s bad days consist of snapping at baristas or getting into internet discourse, not cutting a human being into pieces,” Red says lightly. 

White scowls. “Whatever. We’re done here. Go kiss up to Green or whatever it is you do when you’re not making my life a living hell.” 

“Go rot,” Red replies cleanly, turning on her heel and heading back to the cafeteria, secretly pleased that she can finally spend one week without having to pretend. 

**+02:01:12:03**

Two days pass, devoid of anything life-changing. Blue has become a permanent fixture by Red’s side, the two of them dancing around each other in the day and sitting closer and closer every night, sometimes in the cafeteria and sometimes in storage, tossing questions and answers back and forth, getting drunk on the heady feeling of being known. 

On the other hand, White is now even more closed-off than before, interacting as sparingly as possible with Red and always with a gratuitous amount of mutual cursing. At least the rest of the crew seems to be settling into each other; in their eyes, the danger has passed, and they’re three weeks away from delivering a valuable MIRA ship straight into the hands of their Rebel allies on Unity.

Everything is perfectly, blessedly normal.

Black is the first to stand during their next progress meeting, chin up, refusing to meet anyone but Green’s eye. “Ma’am,” he says, speaking hesitantly at first but gradually with more and more conviction, “I’ve been trying to say this for a while, but it was never really the right time, and then everything happened, and I just, but well, what I’m trying to say is, you see.” He takes a deep breath. “I have achromatopsia.”

No one in the crew is of any remotely medical background, so they stare, confused, until Black explains, “I’m colorblind. Can’t see anything other than black and white and gray.”

With that one sentence, everything makes that much more sense: his lack of distinction between Lime and Pink, his inability to do perhaps the easiest task on the ship. Suddenly Red feels sorry for ever thinking Black was stupid.

“Holy shit.” Green looks vaguely queasy, and definitely just as guilty as Red feels. “I am so sorry. I’m such an idiot. All our names—”

“No, it’s fine,” Black rushes to put her at ease. “I mean, it’s kind of nice. You’re all just shades of gray like me!” 

The sentiment is sweet, but Red does not want to be associated with anyone of her shade of gray, namely Green; if Black calls her ma’am, she might never recover. “Black,” she says, “Black, no…”

Green is still muttering to herself, something about medical records and no one telling her shit in this house, but Black himself seems to be over it. “I mean, as long as you guys help me out when I ask you to, it’s all good. And you have been. Helping me out, I mean. Thanks.”

“We could use Lime’s tools to make identifying marks on all the wires,” Cyan offers. A couple of heads snap towards him, including Red’s; ever since Lime’s death, he hasn’t spoken much, and anything he’s said has been a matter of necessity. The unicorn charm Lime had been carrying on her, the one made from circuitry, is now hanging loosely around his neck with a wire. “It would only take a day, and I wouldn’t mind.” 

Black’s expression has gone soft. “Don’t worry about it, kid,” he says, more gentle than he’s been with anyone else. It reminds Red that Black has been the key comforting force within the crew, especially after all the deaths, and _especially_ with Cyan, who’s barely an adult. “Tasks are our number one priority.” Cyan still looks hesitant, so Black claps a hand on his shoulder and smiles at him. “Hey, look. I’ll find you if I need anything.” 

**+02:01:19:30**

Everyone is back in the cafeteria long before dinner. It turns out that without the paranoia about an impostor hanging over everyone’s heads, they can complete tasks faster, even with the extra load of the dead crewmates’ tasks. 

Green and Black sit quietly at one table, Black’s arm draped loosely over Green’s shoulders while she stares down at her bare hands, looking lost. The rest of them sit side by side on a longer table all the way across the cafeteria. It’s warm here, nestled between Blue and Brown, but it’s also quiet. Too quiet. 

Moments pass in an odd, tense silence until Yellow stands up and walks into his quarters. Brown moves to follow him, but he returns in just a few seconds, holding a box in one hand and a speaker in the other. “Come on,” he says, turning to look at everyone in the cafeteria before setting them both on a table right in the middle of the room. He sits down. 

The first to follow is Brown. He takes the seat directly across from Yellow and slides the box towards himself. “UNO. Huh. What’s all this for?” 

Across the room, Green has looked up. The blankness Red has come to associate with missing Orange is still on her face, but there’s a bit of amusement there, too. 

Yellow grins, all teeth. “Team bonding time.”

That does it; Brown’s head tips back with laughter, and then Blue is standing up and dragging Red with them, and soon everyone is sitting at one cafeteria table side by side with their cards in their hands and smiles, however small, on their faces. Music flows from the speakers, a mix of deep vocals and soft beats that puts everyone a little more at ease. 

No one speaks much apart from Brown and Yellow, who keep up a steady back-and-forth for the duration of the game, only broken up by the occasional “UNO” or “dammit, not the draw four” from other crewmates. It’s still—better, though. It may be strange to see Cyan so somber, or Green so quiet, or White so calm, but it’s better like this. 

When the game finishes and Yellow disappears into his room, along with Brown (to no one’s surprise), the room still feels lighter than it did before. Green starts pulling dinner together, and on a whim, Red decides to join her. It can’t be a good idea to spend any more time with the leader of these Rebels than she has to, but she feels for Green. Something about her heartbreak reminds Red of her own hurt, from a time she hasn’t thought about in years. 

“Good game,” she says quietly, sliding in next to the captain and picking up a knife. The feeling is unfamiliar; it takes a few tries for her to get used to the weight of the blade in her hands slicing at ambiguous vegetables and something that may or may not be meat. 

Green slides the food into a steaming pot on her other side. Her face is invisible when she says, “I’m glad Yellow brought it out. It was… fun.” 

Something’s clearly been left unsaid, but Red doesn’t pry. She knocks her shoulder against Green’s in what she hopes is a kind gesture. “I’m glad you played.” 

“Card games are good morale boosters.” It sounds like a soundbite. It sounds like a “this conversation is over, goodbye.” That impression seals itself when Green takes the knife from Red’s hands, lost in concentration, and gently nudges her out of the kitchen. 

Red tries not to sympathize with her, tries to focus on the lives Green is capable of ruining and probably has ruined as a Rebel captain. But it’s impossible with the memory of Green’s crumpled face and the way she loved Orange so openly, so fully. 

“Dinner’s ready,” Green says, coming up behind her. The day ends with food, a softer kind of silence, and the specific feeling of weightlessness associated with hurtling through space at hundreds of miles per hour while sitting perfectly still. 

**+02:02:14:25**

In an ironic but ultimately fitting fashion, Red finds out that her absolute favorite task on the ship is in weapons. She has already reconciled with the fact that killing people will never be any easier for her, but the thrill of pressing her feet into the floor and twisting this way and that to shoot down asteroids is the kind of adrenaline Red rarely experiences. 

“Please,” she pleads with Yellow, knowing he’s the one most likely to bend to someone else’s wishes. She feels almost like a little girl begging her older brother to share his toys with her, but she doesn’t mind; the thought only makes her feel lighter. “I swear, we don’t even have to trade, I’ll just add your weapons slot onto my task load, please, please, _please_.” 

It’s admittedly a bit overboard, but he just laughs and ruffles her hair in the friendly manner everyone has come to associate with him, so she considers it a win. “Fine, brat.” There’s nothing but affection in his voice. 

Red grins and adds the task to her list, thanking him while already dashing in the direction of weapons. The chair, the controls, the triggers—if things were any different, if this were a MIRA ship and not a Rebel-infiltrated one, Red would have felt more at home here than anywhere else. 

To be perfectly honest, that might still be true. 

Of course she wishes the feeling of a trigger under her finger wasn’t as familiar as it is, but it’s easier to overlook when she can focus singularly on the lifeless targets. She adjusts the opacity on her visor, directs the _Skeld_ ’s guns towards the incoming asteroid field, and shoots. 

And it’s fucking _fun_. That in itself makes her feel so much more human than any other task does. Red could be a kid in an arcade, or a MIRA astronaut on a supply mission, or anyone, really, when she’s behind the controls like this. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Blue standing a few feet away, watching her spin and fire so rapidly her movements blur together. Blue’s jaw is slack, their expression one of mild awe. That look fills Red with some strange, heartbeat-quickening feeling; she relaxes her posture, leans back in her seat, and tilts her arms and legs so she looks leaner even through the nylon of her suit. If her visor was off, she might just have smirked.

“Are you kidding me,” Blue mutters, loud enough that Red can still hear them over the sound of asteroids capsizing in front of her. 

“Enjoying the view?”

Blue groans and Red laughs, her heart spiking even more. _Yeah_ , she thinks, watching Blue shake their head at her and walk away, _this is fun_. 

**+02:04:03:01**

Red and Blue finally meet again halfway through the week, halfway through the night. They look up from the half-finished card game in front of them—what is it with cards this week?—when Cyan’s door opens and he almost falls out of it, rubbing at his eyes with his fists. He looks extremely rumpled but overall much better than he has for the past few days. 

“Good morning, sunshine,” Red says, because she thinks she might associate Cyan with sunshine: floppy gold hair, that energetic smile, the dimples in his cheeks. 

His “hi” sounds tired and small, but he still sits down between them and holds his hand out for the deck. Blue sweeps up the old game and deposits the cards into his hands, where he pours all of his energy into shuffling them for a good while longer than he usually does. 

They play. 

Somehow the rhythm feels as familiar as though they’ve been on this ship for months, as though they’re family or something even deeper than that. It’s all too apparent in the way Cyan’s shoulders finally sink from his ears and he lets his hoodie slide off his shoulders, revealing the unicorn charm he apparently even wears to bed. It’s just as clear in the way Blue’s bare ankle curls around Red’s and doesn’t let go. 

Blue stands up after the sixth round, and Red thinks they’re about to sleep, but they just say, “Come on, get up. We’re going to go look at the stars.” 

The peace that the three of them have here feels delicate, careful; Red looks significantly between Blue and Cyan, wondering if it’ll be too much. But Cyan just stands and tucks himself into Blue’s side, making Red realize that in all the time she’s spent watching her own back and White’s, the rest of the crew has been gradually fitting into each other like puzzle pieces. 

Then again, it must be easier for them, since they’re all on the same side. 

“You coming, Red?” Cyan asks. His free arm is held out to her in a gesture of welcome and comfort, and she forces down the emotions that threaten to contort her face or, worse, make her tear up. 

“Yeah,” she mutters, sliding between them, encircling them with her long arms. Cyan is taller than her and Blue slightly shorter, but with Cyan’s arm rubbing her back and Blue’s face buried in her neck, she feels like she could be a little kid, could be a towering god. 

Blue is the first to pull away, their curly hair a tangled mop from where Red and Cyan were both messing with it. “I love you guys,” they say, softly. Red’s eyes widen, and so do Blue’s when they see her. “I mean—just like—” But Cyan is smiling a little, so they let it be. “Let’s just go look at the stupid stars.”

Red tries not to watch Blue, but it’s hard to avoid tracking their every movement: their shirt riding up when they stretch their short frame up to reach for the helmet, the effortless way they slide into their suit. She looks away before Blue can catch her eye, but Cyan is there, still with that slightly mischievous smile on his lips. Red holds her finger to her mouth in a ‘shh’ gesture then pulls her helmet over her head. 

“You haven’t seen this view when the ship is dark yet,” Blue says as they walk, their paces slower without the rush of tasks. “There’s barely any light on this side of the window, so you can pretty much see infinity when you look out.” 

Cyan speeds up when he spots the window, rushing forward and pressing his palms and visor to the glass with a soft _clink_. “Oh,” he breathes, drinking in the dots of light and blue-purple blur of distant nebulas turning the darkness around them into a blooming pocket of light. “Oh. _Infinity_.” 

“Yeah,” Red agrees, laying down so she can see further up. In a few moments, Blue and Cyan are lying on either side of her. 

“Let’s play a game,” Cyan says softly. “A question game. Like we’re teenagers, just regular old friends having a sleepover.” 

Blue exhales, so quietly that only Red can hear it. “You are a teenager,” they say. 

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, yeah.” They sound relieved, and so is Red, relieved that Cyan is showing interest in something that isn’t a task. “What are your favorite colors?”

“Green,” Cyan says instantly. “But blue is a close second, so I guess I got lucky with my suit.”

“Mine’s red, so. I got lucky, too.”

“Damn. Mine’s purple. I hate that I have to associate it with the Rebel now.” 

Red tenses up. It’s late, and she doesn’t want to be reminded that Blue and Cyan are Rebels. She doesn’t want to hear them lie about their allegiance any more than she already has to. “How many siblings do you have?” she asks, to pull the subject as far away as she can. “I don’t have any, back at home.”

“Just one brother,” Blue replies. “He’s alright sometimes, but there’s parts of me he never really understood. Or even tried to understand.”

“I’ve got loads of little sisters,” Cyan says. “They’re so tiny. I would carry all four of them at once. The biggest on my back, and the rest in my arms or clinging to my legs.” He pauses. “And a dog. The dog is basically another kid. He’s a golden retriever.” 

“You remind me of a golden retriever,” Blue says. “An unfairly tall golden retriever who can’t tell the difference between a data drive and an identification card.”

Cyan makes an indignant noise and throws his hands up, his shoulder digging into Red’s with the movement. “The slots are the same size!” he protests. “It isn’t my fault! Red, back me up.”

“It’s kind of your fault,” she admits reluctantly. “You’re a bit of a dumbass.”

He huffs but doesn’t protest anymore. “You’re lucky I love you guys. How many instruments do you play?”

They lay there for a while longer, staring at the stars, asking the most insignificant of questions. Red feels more real, more _human_ , than she ever has before; she can almost ignore the voice telling her to stop fraternizing with the enemy, can almost forget about the cold, hard gun nestled inside her mattress.

**+03:04:15:26**

The first day that White uses the impostors’ modded suits to contact Red, most of the crew is split between the reactor and the two engines. Not much is said in the transmission apart from White’s location (“navigation”) and how much time Red has (“need you right now”). 

Red mutters something about checking on the fuel levels in storage then slips away from where Green and Blue are fueling the upper engine. A left, another left, and four screws later, she’s emerging from the vent in electrical and sprinting through storage towards navigation, where she starts to hear shouting and struggling. 

“No!” Black shouts, stumbling out of navigation with a dark red cut in his suit, oozing with blood. “You killed—he’s dead—get away from me, you Rebel!”

Almost unconsciously, Red sprints towards him, unzipping her pocket but leaving the gun concealed, hoping to reason with Black and feeling ill at the thought of what awaits her inside navigation. The lights are flickering dangerously, and there is White, her suit somehow spotlessly clean while she wipes the blade of her knife on a dead body. 

Fuck. It’s _Brown's_ dead body. Good, sweet Brown with his little handmade earrings and the braids Lime gave him, which he never undid, not once. Brown is gone, and for a second it doesn’t even matter that he was a Rebel, because no man with a smile that kind could ever have been the “bad guy”. 

Red is snapped out of her trance by more shouting, and then there’s Black, clawing at the walls and trying to propel himself away, towards… weapons? No. Towards the cafeteria.

Realization dawns on her a little too slowly, and by then Black is almost at weapons. In one burst of fear and adrenaline, Red pulls out her gun, takes off the safety, and pulls the trigger. 

In the ringing silence after the shot, no one moves. White is the first to stand, tucking her now-clean knife into some hidden pocket and tilting her head towards Red, perhaps in thanks. She pulls out a screwdriver and disappears sideways. A few seconds later, Red hears a gasping sound from in front of her; Black is stomach-down in the corridor, still struggling to drag his body forward. 

She knows what she has to do, but the knowledge that her actions are necessary don’t make running forward and dragging Black’s body backwards any easier. His helmet comes off more effortlessly than it should, its sealing mechanism having been broken by the bullet through his upper back. There is a soft whistling coming from the hole where oxygen is leaking steadily from his pack. 

“You’re not going to make it,” she tells him honestly. 

His skin is pale from blood loss. Even from a few feet above him, Red can see freckles when she props him against the wall. She’s surprised she hadn’t noticed them before. In that moment they’re almost too human to bear. 

Black coughs, and Red thinks for a moment that he’s going to say something to her, but he only tilts his head back onto the wall. “I’m sorry, Brown.” His voice is hoarse, almost inaudible. A single tear glides down his cheek. “I tried my best.” 

One soft exhale, and he’s gone. 

**+03:04:17:32**

Two hours later, everyone is still spread across the left of the ship. Every passing minute pushes the two dead bodies festering by navigation out of Red’s mind, especially since she’s found a distraction she’s rather fond of. 

Blue and Red have started sticking to each other. It was an unconscious action at first, but gradually more and more tension and meaning snuck its way behind every _wait for me_ and _I’m coming_. Every little touch, every accidental stare, all of it peaks in electrical when a chunk of Red’s hair catches in a screw on the inside of her helmet, trapping her neck at an unusual angle. “Blue,” she squeaks out. “Can you help me with my helmet for a second?” 

They must hear the mild note of pain in her voice, because they abandon their download and walk over to grasp Red’s helmet with both hands. “I might just have to pull it off. You’ll be fine without your oxygen for a few minutes, and this shouldn’t take more than a few seconds. That okay with you?”

Their faces are really, really close. “Yeah,” Red breathes, and then her helmet is halfway off and Blue’s gloved hands are carefully detaching long black hair from the metal against her skull. 

When they’re done, rather than putting it back on, Blue tips Red’s helmet all the way off, catching it in one hand. “Hi,” they say. The lights are reflecting off their visor, but Red can still tell they’re smiling. 

“Hi,” she replies, trying to locate Blue’s eyes through the glass. She can’t. “Can I. Um. I’m going to take your helmet off now.”

“Okay.” 

The fuzzy feeling in Red’s stomach doubles, triples, intensifies once they’re nose to nose, really, no helmets between them. She can’t say it’s new, this feeling, but it’s never been this strong before, and now Blue is leaning in, and their eyes have never been a brown this damn pretty, and— 

“Oh,” Cyan says from the doorway. They freeze, stepping apart. For one moment the three crewmates—friends—stand there staring at each other, Red’s chin tilted up in challenge and Cyan’s face unreadable under his visor. Then Cyan pulls off his helmet and smiles, sweaty curls flopping onto a face bright red with exertion and hints of raw, wide-eyed excitement. “That just almost happened, right?” he blurts out. 

Red exhales deeply. She can feel the tension leave Blue’s body beside her. “Maybe it did,” she says slowly. “Maybe it didn’t.” 

It’s an attempt at intimidation, but Cyan is too golden to see it as anything but encouragement. He only grins wider and gives them a crude approximation of an eyebrow wiggle before saluting and walking right back out of electrical, putting his helmet on backwards as he goes. They hear him curse softly in the hall, footsteps stopping for a moment while he presumably turns it back around; in another moment, he’s gone. 

Better than being caught committing murder, Red supposes. 

“It was nice to see him so happy about something,” Blue says. When Red looks at them, they’ve got a different sort of smile on their face: less teasing, more soft, more gentle. “It’s been… a while.” 

“I missed him,” Red answers simply. It feels strange to be this honest, strange but refreshing. “I really, really missed him.”

“He’s a good kid.” 

They stand there watching each other, barely a foot between them, for a while longer. Red is content to stare. Electrical’s lighting is all stark white highlights and harsh shadows, but Blue’s eyes are still a soft ochre, a few shades lighter than their warm brown skin. Something tugs at Red’s stomach, something much lighter than the guilt that’s been plaguing her for weeks. 

“You look stupid in this lighting,” she says, just for the sake of saying something. It’s a lie, and Blue must know it, too, because they just smile and pull Red closer. 

“You want to kiss me so bad,” they joke, and now it’s a full-blown grin, and Red is laughing a little, too. “You want to kiss me so bad you can’t even hide it. You want to kiss me so bad it makes _you_ look stupid.” 

That’s when Red really does kiss them. Maybe caring isn’t so scary after all. 

**+03:04:19:29**

The high Red rides after the kiss doesn’t linger for long until it’s cut off by another emergency meeting, and suddenly she and White’s double kill is the only thing she can think about. Her heart seizes when she catches sight of Yellow’s grief-stricken face. The bodies haven’t been taken to the cafeteria; instead, Green pulls two body bags from storage and follows Yellow towards weapons and navigation, where the rest of the crew has dissolved into panic. 

“Two deaths.” Green is so grave she’s barely audible. “One with a knife, one with a gun. It could have been one person, could have been two. The bodies have been here for… a while.”

Yellow makes a pitiful sound from where he’s crouched over Brown’s body. One shaking hand has removed Brown’s helmet and is pressed against his unbreathing face. The contrast between his deep skin and Brown’s face, even whiter with death, is startling. A tear falls onto Yellow’s hand, and Red looks away to Green, who is still speaking. 

But not even Green, with all the strength and authority she’s earned, is able to hold herself together. Everyone and no one seems suspicious; whenever Green turns to question any one crewmate specifically, they clam up under the pure rage in her gaze. 

“Fucking hell!” She turns and rams a gloved fist into the wall, then slumps against it.

“Green,” Blue says gently, although they sound just as shaken as she does. “Everyone is tired. Let’s go back to the cafeteria, okay?” 

The crewmates flinch when Blue approaches Green, but Green just collapses into Blue’s arms. 

“Come on,” they whisper, and everyone but Yellow follows. 

Right as the cafeteria door closes, Red hears a hollow shout from navigation. She closes her eyes. 

**+03:06:21:56**

The two days pass in a silence so tense that even the softest of breathing feels too intrusive. Not a word is said during breakfast or while doing tasks. By some mutual agreement, there isn’t even a progress meeting partway through the day; at this point, Green has made it clear that the only tasks which matter are the ones which could impact the time of arrival on Unity. Even through her grief, Green seems committed to her role as a Rebel captain. 

Red gives herself just as much credit. Although she walks around as lifelessly as the rest of them, still numb over having killed Black, she tries her best to make things easier for White on the seventh day of the week. In the morning she uses her screwdriver to stab through the emergency light hatch, then escapes through the vents while the crew rushes to fix the lights. In the afternoon she fires a shot into the reactor, setting off a meltdown that the crew races to manually stop. 

But the day ends without a single death, and Red doesn’t bother to hide her relief. 

Later in the night, she sits on her bed staring at the handgun laid across her pillow. It— _she_ —has taken two lives already. She wishes she didn’t have to kill anyone else. Part of her even wishes that she was a Rebel; wouldn’t it be easier to kill White, wicked White? Fuck the world, fuck the universe. It can burn if it fucking wants. 

She glares at the gun until her vision blurs, then shoves it away inside her mattress when she can’t bear to look at it anymore. There’s a knock at the door, and Red moves forward in a daze to open it. 

It’s Blue. Their short curls are tied back in a small knot, their face scrubbed raw. All they have on is a shirt, only a small bit larger than Red’s size, but so big on Blue that it falls to their knees. 

“Please,” they whisper, and Red lets them in, lets them grab her bare forearm and pull her onto the bed with them, lets them bury their face in her shoulder and shake with dry sobs. 

The act of comforting is unfamiliar to her, but Red runs a hand up Blue’s back, trying to draw anything other than guilt from the warmth of their body against her. “Why are you here?” she murmurs against their hair once her curiosity overwhelms her need to hold them. 

They pull away slightly and look up at her. Their face is still dry, but their eyes are rimmed with red. It’s hard to see them as anything other than beautiful, but Red wishes more than anything that they weren’t as broken as they are now. “First Orange.” The name is like a stab through Red’s heart. “Then Lime. Now Brown. I needed to be with someone.” 

_Get away from me_ , Red wants to say as they press their forehead against hers. _Don’t care about me, please. Don’t make me care about you. Not when I have to kill you._

“I needed to be with you,” Blue finishes, leaning in. 

They come together again and again and again, and Red lets herself surrender to _feeling_ , just for a moment, just for a night. She thinks she’s crying, hours later when they lay down and curl into each other and breathe together until sleep doesn’t seem so far away. She thinks maybe she was crying from the start. 

Just this once, she thinks: I am human. Just this once, she thinks: that’s okay. 

**+04:00:11:02**

By some cruel twist of fate, the next person to call an emergency meeting is Blue. When what remains of the crew congregates in the cafeteria, Blue doesn’t meet Red’s eye; their gaze is locked on Yellow’s motionless body on the table before them. 

It’s strange, seeing Yellow so still. If it weren’t for the smears of blood across his chest, emanating from the knife wound White left in his heart, it would seem as though he was asleep. His skin still looks warm and full, premature crinkles at the corners of his mouth making him look like he’s still smiling, even in death. But without his head bobbing to music only he can hear, without his hand reaching up to rest on Brown’s shoulder or ruffle another crewmate’s hair, his body looks more dead than any other body has so far. 

“God,” Cyan breathes, sounding almost as defeated as Blue looks. 

“How many more deaths will it take?” Blue asks under their breath. Then, louder, this time locking eyes with every crewmate in the room: “What do you _want_ from us?” They pound a fist on the table and turn away, stalking into their room. The pressurized door slides shut the same way it always does, but in the silence Blue’s rare outburst left behind, it’s as good as a slam. 

“Yellow was in the upper engine,” Green says quietly, her voice schooled into that of an apathetic captain. “Blue found him almost immediately, but they didn’t see anyone nearby. We suspect that the Rebel impostors may be using vents to travel through the ship faster, but all vent-standard screwdrivers are missing and there’s only a week until we reach Unity.”

“Is there anything we can do?” White asks, the picture of innocence. 

Green sighs. “As much as I fucking _hate_ to say it, there’s nothing. We can scout out the vents, but that won’t tell us much apart from the impostor’s travel abilities. Our best chance at reaching Unity alive might just be to do our tasks and hope for the best.” 

Victory is right on the horizon, and glory with it, but the more lives Red and White take, the more it feels like _loss_. 

**+04:04:16:52**

Red finds herself chasing after Blue more and more often. She’ll stand just inside the cafeteria, hoping for a chance to lift Blue’s mood, or maybe she’ll linger by electrical, hoping Blue will stumble in to complete a task and the two of them will end up hand in hand again. It cuts down their productivity, but it raises their morale however much it can be lifted, so Green doesn’t seem to care.

(Or maybe, even if she does care, she doesn’t say so. They all know Green is gradually disappearing at the edges, a human vignette fading into shadow. Red wishes she didn’t feel so fucking bad about it.)

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows that at some point Blue will have to be terminated, as will Green, as will Cyan. But it’s the back of her mind for a reason, and she still has three more days, three days to figure out— 

She comes to a stop in the hallway between the cafeteria and weapons, where there are usually three escape pods waiting to be ejected, in the case of emergency. 

Only two remain. 

Logically, of course, there is only a one out of four chance that the one person in the one missing pod is Blue. Logic, however, does nothing to ease the rising panic in Red’s mind, her stomach, the spaces behind her ears. “Blue,” she says into the empty hallway.

The lack of response is all it takes for Red to fling herself forward past the untouched pods gleaming chrome, refusing to let her heavy suit restrict her movements. She barrels into weapons and then oxygen and then navigation while shouting, “Blue! Blue, where the fuck are you?” 

_It’s okay_ , a part of her says in a rare show of intelligence. _You’ll probably crash into them in shields, and they’ll kiss you and say it’s all going to be alright_ —Blue isn’t in shields. _No, don’t worry, don’t worry, you’ll find them in communications, it’s okay, they’re still here_ —Blue isn’t in communications. _I swear, Red, don’t panic. They’re probably in storage_ —empty— _admin_ —empty— _electrical_ —Green and Cyan look up, bewildered, and tell her that no, they haven’t seen Blue; haven’t seen them since lunchtime, in fact. 

White is alone in the cafeteria when Red circles all the way back, and she barely has a moment to look surprised before Red’s flung off her helmet and barreled into her, forearm braced across White’s neck while she pushes her into the wall. 

“Swear to me you didn’t kill Blue and launch them off this ship,” Red snarls. “Swear to me right now, White, or I swear you won’t live to see tomorrow.” 

“I swear,” White gasps. 

Red loosens her grip, but only a little. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“I swear, Red, what the fuck? Cyan and Green are in electrical together, and they would never suspect you. I’m not stupid enough to get myself caught. I didn’t kill Blue.”

It sounds like it should make sense, but the pieces of White’s reasoning circle around each other aimlessly in Red’s head. “Tell me where they are, then.” 

“I have no idea, Red, get the fuck off me—”

“Tell me where they _are_ , White, if they’re not a fucking corpse floating in an escape pod somewhere!”

There’s something dark in White’s eyes when she looks up at her. “You’d put one human life over the fate of MIRA, wouldn’t you? You don’t give a shit about stopping the Rebellion anymore,” she spits. “You were all for killing off Purple, but now there’s three Rebels left, and you _care_ too much to terminate them.” 

Red pictures it, again, the same image that has been burned into her mind on loop: the crew reaching Unity, safe, unharmed. Worlds and worlds aflame. She steps backwards, releases White, watches her slide down the wall and clutch her throat. If only White wasn’t right. If only Red cared. “I thought I made it obvious that if you killed Blue, I’d kill you,” she says frankly. “I meant it.” 

“For the last time, I didn’t kill the love of your pathetic little life.” White’s next mistake is saying, “They probably ran off themselves because they realized they were dating a fucking _monster_. Or maybe just because they’re a coward.” 

Blue was the first person to ever— _ever_ —care about Red. “I don’t appreciate liars,” she says bitterly. She pushes the emergency button. 

**+04:04:17:38**

Green and Cyan run into the cafeteria moments later, one after another, looking terrified as they throw off their helmets and the pressurized door shuts behind them. “Where’s the body?” Green asks, panting, scanning the cafeteria tables wildly. 

Behind her, Cyan’s footsteps have slowed to a shaky stop. He glances over at Red, then does a double take, his green eyes wide when they lock with hers. “Blue…” he whispers. 

MIRA aflame. The _universe_ aflame. The images cycle through her mind, again, again, again, so fast they make her sick. How many people did Blue kill before they died? How many innocents fell at Blue’s hands under the name of the Rebellion? And why, God, why doesn’t any of it matter to Red? 

“An escape pod is missing, and so is Blue’s body,” Red says, the words catching in her throat on their way out. “You two were in electrical together. It didn’t take long to put two and two together. White is the last impostor among us.” It takes a conscious effort for Red to keep herself from looking over at White, who has started pleading with the other two. 

“No, I swear,” White begs in a rare show of pure desperation. It’s the most emotion Red has ever seen come out of her. “I’m loyal to MIRA, I swear, I’m loyal to MIRA!” 

Red does not watch them eject her. She doesn’t have to watch it happen to see it burned into her retinas, the picture as clear as it would have been if she, too, were floating in space alongside her partner. _Partner_. First Blue was taken from her, and now White is gone, and soon Green and Cyan will be, too. All because of her, because of this stupid space war.

She wishes, not for the first time, that saving MIRA—saving the world—wasn’t so _fucking_ difficult. 

**+04:06:14:45**

There are only three of them left, three crewmates sharing careful meals and careful nods every time they catch each other’s eyes. And they think they’re safe now, Red realizes with a sinking feeling every time Green turns her weary face upon her. They think Red is just like them. 

Red doesn’t want to have to prove them wrong, but when the _Skeld_ hits the outskirts of the solar system that Unity is located in, she knows she has to move fast. The ship is less than a day away from its destination and still contains all the information the Rebellion needs, ready to be hand-delivered by Green or Cyan or both. 

The opportunity comes to her when they separate for the last round of tasks: Cyan splits off towards navigation for wiring, while Green turns in the exact opposite direction to divert power to security for a last sweep of the cameras. Red picks a third route and disappears into medbay, tossing the vent cover aside more carelessly than she should and crawling through to security.

When she peeks her head into the room, Green’s oxygen pack and helmet are discarded on a table. The captain herself is crouched near the cameras, a pair of pliers in one hand and a small screwdriver in the other. Red eases the vent shut as quietly as she can and, before she can lose the nerve, dashes forward to grab Green’s life support. She retreats to the doorway right as Green turns around, clutching the oxygen to her chest with one hand and pointing the other, shakier, gun-wielding hand at Green’s head. 

Understanding passes through Green’s face, quickly chased by disappointment, then, most shocking of all, pure sadness. “I always wondered why we never found a gun in Purple’s belongings,” she says quietly. 

_Shoot_ , Red tells herself, but her finger refuses to pull back the trigger. _Shoot!_

Green slowly lifts herself into an upright position, her hands raised in surrender as if that will do anything to change the course of things. Even in defeat she looks regal, the picture of a captain, as if even the air is bending to her will. Her voice is steady when she says, “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do. MIRA depends on it.” 

Green has the gall to look confused. “You work for the Rebellion.”

“Don’t,” Red demands, the delivery of her words almost as shaky as her hands. “No, don’t lie to me, don’t manipulate me, I _know_ where your loyalties lie.”

“Red—”

“Stop!” _Green is a Rebel, Green is a Rebel, Green is a Rebel._ Red’s hand trembles more violently. “Just stop talking. One more word, and I’ll shoot.”

“Red, please—”

“One more word and I’ll fucking shoot!”

It isn’t enough; Green says her name, again, pleading, and it’s too much, too much, Red can’t bear it. She shoots, not to kill, not to hit Green’s body at all, just so the sound of the gun firing can send the room into silence and give her space to think, but then a bullet is colliding with Green’s arm and she’s falling to the ground and the injury isn’t fatal but it’s Red’s fault, Red’s fault, Red’s fault. 

“You’re a Rebel,” Red snaps at no one, in an effort to reassure herself. She backs slowly out of the doorway, taking Green’s oxygen with her. “You’re a Rebel. You would’ve killed us all.” 

Another gunshot, this time aimed at the room’s locking mechanism, and the door to security is sliding shut. The last thing Red sees is Green’s face, the face of a fallen leader, twisted with a pain deeper than any bullet wound. 

The _Skeld_ will reach Unity in less than ten hours. Green isn’t dead yet, but she’s as good as. The panel in Red’s suit says there’s one person working in navigation; she starts in that direction, then aborts the movement and directs herself to the cafeteria again. 

It’s better to pack her things now and store them in an escape pod. That way she can shut down the _Skeld_ and leave it in space, useless and unable to deliver any information to the Rebellion. White would approve of the logic. 

She tells herself that logic is all it is, and not her unwillingness to kill the last crewmate. She may not appreciate liars, but Red has never denied being a hypocrite. 

**+04:06:19:12**

Hours later, Red stands in the shadows of electrical, her gun loaded and at the ready. She’s crying. She doesn’t deserve to be, of course, but she is; somehow, after all she has done, the thought of what comes next hurts, perhaps more than anything has ever hurt before. 

Cyan hums softly while he stands torso-deep in the wire box, blissfully unaware of the gun pointed at the back of his head, right where Red knows the helmet won’t be thick enough to protect him. 

An image flashes in her mind, of she and Cyan playing cards under Lime’s timepiece, of his calloused hands and boyish smile and floppy yellow curls. But it only glimmers for a moment before falling into shadow, superseded by the darker image of Cyan reaching Unity and enabling the Rebellion to set worlds and worlds on fire. 

She chokes on a sob and, before Cyan can turn around, she’s pulled the trigger. 

There is no slow motion, no flashing lights, no fade to black. Only this: Cyan’s body, crumpled on the ground, red blood smeared across blue-green metal. Only this: the buzzing sound of abandoned wires, the tinkling sound of Red stepping over bits of broken glass from his visor. Only this: the way his face lights up for the last time when he sees Red above him. 

“Boy, is it good to see a friendly face,” he coughs, blood pouring freely from his mouth and marring his smile. “I've got a little secret to tell you, Red.” She tenses, wondering if he’s about to reveal something about the Rebellion, but he only laughs a broken little laugh. “I think I’m dying, Red.” 

That’s all she can take—tears flow freely down her chin and onto his face, indistinguishable from the mess of sweat and blood across his forehead.

“Oh God,” he murmurs, over and over and over. “Oh God, I think I’m dying.” 

Red pushes herself desperately through the vents until she’s too far away to hear him anymore—or maybe he’s just stopped speaking altogether—before she finally stills, feeling sick, feeling cursed, refusing to feel at all.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, knowing it will never be enough. 

**+05:00:00:00**

The _Skeld_ is empty of everything but twelve beds and dozens of deserted storage units. It floats through space aimlessly, a skeleton, looking nothing like the gleaming ship twelve crewmates boarded five weeks ago. Red pretends she isn’t watching it from the window in her escape pod. There isn’t a trace of satisfaction in her, nor relief, but there is… quiet. She missed the quiet. 

“Congratulations, Red,” says a disjointed, automated voice through the speakers surrounding her. 

She doesn’t startle, doesn’t even speak in return. What’s the point? There’s nothing more MIRA HQ could want from her. The Rebel threat has been eliminated. She’s going home. 

But the message isn’t over. “The crew aboard the _Skeld_ has been terminated. We would like to thank you for successfully eliminating another MIRA asset on our behalf, and to apologize for concealing the truth of our alliance. The Rebellion is indebted to you.”

It is a good thing, Red thinks, hours later when her throat is raw and her fingernails are bloody, that sound cannot travel through space. 

**+94:03:06:49**

Red wakes up again. 

It is an old, tired routine: she wakes up at seven hours, for a moment thinking (hoping) that everything was a dream, that everyone is alive and she and Cyan stayed up last night playing cards while Blue sat next to her with their head on her shoulder. Then the truth sinks in, and her body fades into a ghost. The details change from day to day, but Red can never remember them, can never remember much except for the eleven faces haunting her memories. 

This time, though, there is a louder difference. The quiet unit she’s been staying in for the past few months is no longer quiet; the long-abandoned communication device by her bedside is beeping incessantly. Not a call, Red deduces when she finally pulls herself from bed and examines it, but a battery error. Its inbox contains one message. 

She doesn’t have it in her to be curious, but by some odd compulsion, a hazy finger still reaches out and presses “Display.” 

_dear red._

_i would apologize. for being a coward. for running away. for not being there to protect you. to protect them. but i think a part of me knew all along that it wasnt you who needed the protecting. a part of me knew that you were what we needed protection from. and that scared me. that scared me so fucking bad red. i couldnt stay._

_i wont pretend i understand why you did it. i always thought the rebellion was too wicked and calculated for someone as raw and passionate as you. i also wont pretend i forgive you. i saw the records. its how i found you. its how i know theyre all dead._

_but i want you to know that i cared for you anyways. despite always thinking that maybe i was next. despite wondering how you could live with yourself knowing how many innocents were dead at your hands._

_and i want you to know that you arent theirs anymore. i want to help you become yours again. and maybe. one day. maybe you can become mine too._

_if you want me ill be here. waiting to be found. i still have cyans spare card set. maybe we can play sometime. maybe i can look at you and see a human again. maybe i can kiss the place your neck joins your shoulder and feel safe again. maybe i can protect you from you. if youll protect me from me. if youll find me._

_yours.  
_ _blue._

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, the Rebellion tricked Red into doing their dirty work for them. she really thought she was saving the world or something.
> 
> if you made it all the way, i love you! i'd love a comment; thoughts, criticisms, or just you yelling at me are all appreciated. tell me if you saw Red's manipulation by the Rebellion coming! tell me if you thought Blue was dead or alive! tell me everything!
> 
> personally, i'm not sure if Red goes after Blue. if she does, she'll definitely be able to find them. but i don't know if she decides it's not worth it. or if she just figures she doesn't deserve it. up to you, i guess!


End file.
